Do you see the story? Do you see anything? It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream--making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is the very essence of dreams...

— Joseph Conrad

Droll thing life is -- that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself -- that comes too late -- a crop of inextinguishable regrets.

— Joseph Conrad

Each blade of grass has its spot on earth whence it draws its life, its strength; and so is man rooted to the land from which he draws his faith together with his life.

— Joseph Conrad

Even extreme grief may ultimately vent itself in violence--but more generally takes the form of apathy

— Joseph Conrad

Every age is fed on illusions, lest men should renounce life early and the human race come to an end.

— Joseph Conrad

Facing it, always facing it, that’s the way to get through. Face it.

— Joseph Conrad

Facing it-always facing it-that's the way to get through. Face it!

— Joseph Conrad

Felicity felicity ... is quaffed out of a golden cup ... the flavor is with you alone and you can make it as intoxicating as you please.

— Joseph Conrad

Few men realize that their life, the very essence of their character, their capabilities and their fugacities, are only the expression of their belief in the safety of their surroundings.

— Joseph Conrad

Fiction, at the point of development at which it has arrived, demands from the writer a spirit of scrupulous abnegation. The only legitimate of all the irreconcilable antagonisms that make our life so enigmatic, so burdensome, so fascinating, so dangerous--so full of hope. They exist! And this is the only fundamental truth of fiction.

— Joseph Conrad